


In The Hour of Our Death

by FlygonRider



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Child Murder, Crying, Depictions of Alcholholism, Depictions of Drinking, Disassociation, Discussions of Child Murder, Emotional Self-Harm via Attempted Sex, Emotional Vunerability, Gore, Graphic Depictions of Drowning, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Guns, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Panic Attacks, Spanish flu, Trench Warfare, World War I, clubbing-and not the fun kind, emotional flashbacks, implied emotional abuse, maladaptive coping mechanisms, mentions of gross historical facts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:20:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22838485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlygonRider/pseuds/FlygonRider
Summary: As an angel, Aziraphle is supposed to shine above mortals, like a sun, a beacon of righteousness. He isn’t supposed to debase himself among the dirt of humanity.With war looming on the horizon, Aziraphle is painfully thrust into the filthy, awful truth of human. With no one to support him, and Death encompassing him, his foundations are beginning to crack under the strain.And no matter how well he covers it up, eventually he will be forced to confront it. After all, houses and people built on foundations of sand will fall to ruin once the tide comes in.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Death, Aziraphale/OMC
Comments: 11
Kudos: 58
Collections: Good Omens Big Bang 2019





	In The Hour of Our Death

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, here's the fic that I've been working on for the Good Omens Big Bang since August! It's been an incredible journey working on this, and I'm so excited to show it to the public!
> 
> I will warn you, please heed the tags. This fic goes to some pretty dark places and we get an inside window into Aziraphle's atrocious headspace. I believe all the triggers have been listed, but if you see anything that I missed, please let me know and I will tag it.
> 
> (Regarding the 'gross historical facts' tag, I do mention the fact that soldiers used urine-soaked rags to dispel the effects of chlorine gas before gas masks. Yes it's gross. No, I do not go into detail.) 
> 
> Also if you see any typos, feel free to leave a comment!
> 
> As always, kudos are lovely and comments are gold!

The missive from Heaven comes at midnight, wrapped in red ribbon and sealed with wax. 

Aziraphle paces, glancing at it repeatedly, poking at it with his pencil. Finally _,_ he forces himself toopen it, hands trembling slightly. An order from Heaven is not to be ignored.

 _‘Miracles sorely needed in Europe,’_ it says in Sandalphon’s perfect, looping calligraphy. “Report as soon as possible.”

Aziraphle knows there’s a war going on in Europe, but the whos and the whys and the wheres have escaped him. The American newspapers prefer to report on the new cars and films and the sordid scandals of the elite over any war.

He bundles up like he’s getting ready to return to battle and steps out into the chilly April evening. New York is loud and smelly, the crowd suffocating him. Aziraphle draws his coat close, signalling to passerby; _don't touch me, don't **look** at me._

In contrast to the filthy grey outside, the Cunard offices are bright and warm, decorated with white, unblemished marble.

“I need a ticket to England.” Aziraphle doffs his hat, stoking his thumbs along the rim. “What would be your fastest ship?”

The receptionist behind the glass flashed him a winning smile. Her teeth were unusually white. “That would be the Lusitania, sir. She can make up to twenty knots at top speed. It usually takes four or five days to get to Liverpool. There’s no need to worry about any u-boat attacks, not with how fast she goes.”

Aziraphle buys a ticket for second class, tipping his hat to her like a perfect human gentleman would, and tries not to shiver when the first drops of rain splatter on his eyelids.

*******

Boarding day dawns cold, and cloudy. Aziraphale is at the docks by eight in the morning, along with the other second class passengers. The pier is crowded with well-wishers and paperboys and mail wagons dropping off their last loads. Even though it’s early, the pier has swelled to a cacophony. He sways to calm himself, like wind chimes.

The ship looms above them, grey and imposing in the early morning light. He can see gold paint poking through in places on her funnels, a miniscule reminder of a time before u-boats and mines and deadly seas.

There are families here, some with children who scream and run about and spook the mail horses. Aziraphle watches them with annoyance as he inches closer to the check-in desk. Pinkerton Agents and Cunard officials prowl through the line, checking paperwork and passports.

Even though the newspapers may not be reporting about the war, it’s clear that not everyone is so blasé.

Aziraphle pulls out his silver pocketwatch, checking the time and rubbing the glass face nervously.

“Passport and reason for travel please,” a woman in a Pinkerton uniform asks him brusquely. There are bags under her eyes and her face is pinched, like she’d rather be anywhere else then on this cold pier.

“London, on business, ma’am.” Aziraphle quickly hands over his papers and watches her stamp them, before leaving him to interrogate the next passenger.

Once he finally gets on board, he feels the tension leech out of his shoulders. The interior of the _Lusitania_ is beautiful, with wood paneling and gilded banisters. The walls crawl with ivy wallpaper, and the carpets are plush under his loafers.

As they depart, the sky is clear and blue, dotted with seabirds. Aziraphle takes a breath, leaning against the railing and watching the tumultuous wake. Perhaps this si what he really needs, a break, a chance to step away from everything before he has to dive back into a war

*******

In the deepest hours of the night, when the only ones awake are the bridge crew and the stokers, Aziraphle can feel the presence of the _Lusitania_ at the edge of his mind. She’s bright and eager, still young and spry.

He wanders through the ship when everyone else is asleep, casting a small miracle to keep anybody from noticing him.

Nobody has ever talked _to_ her, and Aziraphle quietly listens as she tells her stories, her impressions of the passengers and crew.

She's annoyed with the slow speed they have her set to. She's a _greyhound_ wanting to sprint across the waves. She’s proud and he can feel it under his wings in that ethereal place where a ship might feel things like pride and impatience, and he thinks he likes her all the more for it.

There are some places where her presence is overwhelming. The boiler rooms, the steering gear room. Aziraphle finds his favorite place is in the hold, hidden away behind a crate of mortar shells.

The crates are marked as carrying books. Aziraphle knows better.

*****

The five days of the voyage pass in a hazy, pleasant blur. Aziraphle eats extravagant food and reads books for hours on end to stave off the feeling of being on death row.

The last night before their arrival in Liverpool, the band puts on a charity concert and talent show in the First Class Lounge. Aziraphle pulls out his best sack suit for it, a creamy beige one with a red pocket square.

By the time he reaches the Lounge, people have already begun breaking up into small cliques. The band is setting up at one end, and Aziraphle hurries to take an open seat. He even buys a program when they’re passed around and hands it to the child next to him.

“It’s perfectly fine,” he says when the mother tries to give it back. “You can have it. Keep it as a souvenir.”

The band takes their places, while the conductor raises his baton.

As the music begins drifting through the Lounge, Aziraphle settles back in his chair, closing his eyes to listen. They run through several pieces, passing around a donation plate. Aziraphle drops several pound coins into it and gives it to the next person.

Once the band has finished, the conductor annocenses an intermission, and steps down.

Captain Turner enters and the mood of the room grows tense. He clears his throat, before putting his arms behind his back. “As you all know, tomorrow we will be heading into the Irish Sea, which has been designated a ‘zone of war’ by the Germans. I have received information that submarines have been spotted off the Iriah coast. However,” he holds up a hand to quiet the distressed murmuring, “The Lusitania can easily outrun any German submarine. We will also be getting an escort from the Royal Navy into Liverpool. This ship is perfectly safe. I bid all of you a good evening.”

He turns smartly on his heel to leave. Now the mood in the room is even tenser than before. It’s almost on the edge of mania, like everybody wants to run away but don’t have anywhere to go. 

The conductor comes back, ending the intermission. Some of the passengers go up and perform songs or recite poetry. Even so, it all seems fake, like plastering on a smile when in pain. 

Finally, Aziraphle’s had enough. He stands up. “Does anybody have a guitar I may borrow?

“Well, it’s not a guitar,” A woman with an American accent passes him a small guitar-shaped case, “But this ukulele should suffice.”

He takes out the ukulele, strumming it a few times to tune it and plucking some strings to get a feel for it. Not the deep, soft sound he was going for, but it will do.

Aziraphle takes a seat at the front of the room, pulling his chair close to everyone, and begins playing a Spanish lullaby that Crowley taught him in the aftermath of the Inquisition. He infuses a miracle into the notes, one designed to calm fears and take away nightmares, and lets his low, sonorous voice carry it to each person. It’s not exactly how the song went; the ukulele makes the notes too high and plinky, but it’s close enough that Aziraphle doesn’t mind.

Slowly, the murmuring ceases, and the mood relaxes.

When Aziraphle finishes, he sets the ukulele aside as everybody politely applauds. He hands the ukulele back to the woman and takes his seat.

He watches the rest of the talent show, letting the jollity of the now-eased crowd ease his own worries.

The escort will come, the Captain promised.

Aziraphle tells himself that, even with his trepidation simmering under the surface.

*******

Aziraphle comes out of his room at lunchtime and manages a cup of tea and a small salad. The warm tea helps calm him a little.

He decides that sunshine will do him good, and leaves the Second Class Lounge to stroll around on the Marconi deck. Below, he can see children jumping rope with a crew member. The nice weather has drawn everybody who isn’t at lunch out, and the decks are crowded. 

Aziraphle is just about ready to go down the staircase when he sees something flash in the corner of his eyes. He turns to the light, and about 500 yards away, the ocean is bubbling. The silver flashes almost remind him of fish.

In the next millisecond, a long silver streak begins racing across the placid surface towards the ship. “That's not a torpedo, is it?” A man walking behind Aziraphle asks. His stomach drops. He can see the torpedo now, sleek and silver and deadly as it slices through the water.

It vanishes under the deck, and an instant later, a massive geyser of water erupts along the side of the ship, going twice as high as the funnels. One of the lifeboats disappears into a cloud of splinters.

The ship _screams_ in his head, a sharp stabbing pain like someone is driving an ice pick through his brain. He staggers to the side, clutching his head. There’s _pain_ and _fear_ and _terror_ so overwhelming that he can’t breathe, can’t _think—_

Aziraphle forcibly snaps the connection he formed with the _Lusitania_ over the past days, and the sudden empty space leaves him hollow.

The ship lists dangerously to the side, nearly throwing the people on the deck. A second, smaller explosion rumbles below him, and he can faintly feel the Lusitania screaming louder at the edge of his mind.

But there’s no panic. Aziraphle wants to shake them, shout at them to get to their lifeboats and fling themselves overboard, run, _run_ before the ship sucks them down.

“Everything is alright! Return to your cabins and we’ll get this issue resolved soon enough." a steward comes on deck to reassure the crowd.

Aziraphle wants to leap forward and strangle her. He can still feel the metaphorical death throes of the _Lusitania_ at the edge of his mind.

The ship is dying. The ship is already dead, and everybody just hasn’t caught on yet. Aziraphle sends out a curse, subtle enough to only make everyone uneasy, just enough to get everyone searching for lifebelts and shuffling towards the boats. He quietly takes a life vest from one of the containers on the deck and tightens the straps across his chest. 

As the tilting gets worse, the panic becomes overpowering, far greater than any empty platitudes offered by the crew.

Aziraphle tries his best to hand out lifebelts and guide passengers to the boats. There’s people shoving and shouting and children crying as the cold water laps ever closer. Half the lifeboats are useless, hanging so far over the railing that nobody can reach them. 

Aziraphle shoves children into the lifeboats and hands off babies ripped from their mother’s arms. The crew is nowhere to be found, and several passengers have begun trying to lower the boats themselves. 

Things quickly begin going wrong. The boats aren’t being lowered correctly, or they’re being lowered on one side so their passengers are dumped into ocean, or they’re falling on top of each other and crushing everyone inside.

Aziraphle tries to help push one of the lifeboats out over the railing, using just enough of his power to get it cleared. He can feel the terror of the passengers sitting inside, and throws his shoulder harder against the wood along with the other men he’s helping.

His foot catches on a puddle, making him fall painfully to the deck. Without his strength, the boat swings back, crushing several passengers between it and the wall. 

Before he can even think, he’s lifted the boat off and started to lower it, even with the awful angle. He knows there are eyes on him now—pushing a seven hundred pound boat single-handedly will do that—but there’s still so many people on board and Aziraphle wants to save as many as he can.

Other people have started jumping into the debris-filled water. They scream for help and flail their arms and some of them quickly disappear under surface.

Aziraphle glances at them, before looking away. It’s too late for them, and soon it will be too late for him too, if he can’t figure a way off.

Suddenly, his attention is pulled by a small, crying girl, nearly lost in the stampede. He forces his way through to reach her, and crouches at eye level.

“Are you all right?” He asks her. “Where are your parents?”

“I lost them,” she sniffles and wipes her nose on her sleeve. Her dress is large and billows in the wind; when she falls in she’ll surely die within minutes. Perhaps it’d be a mercy, to let her slip beneath the waves.

He takes off his lifevest and quickly pulls it over her head, tightening the straps over her chest. “There you go, that’s a love.” He looks down at the water, and panics at seeing how close it is to his feet. The ship lurches further to the right, in its final death roll, and there’s no more time to think, only jump into the water and hope for the best.

Aziraphle grabs the girl by the collar of her dress and throws her as hard as he can, away from the ship, giving her a small chance to swim away.

Before he can leap, the ship gives a low, deep groan and rolls over completely, throwing Aziraphle into the sea.

He gasps, inhaling a mouthful of salty water, and sputters. The ship quickly slides into the ocean around him, dragging him down in a wet cloud of ash and tar.

Aziraphle’s limbs flail ineffectively. Without his lifevest, and the weight of his heavy clothes, it’s impossible for him to swim to the surface.

Something slams into his shoulders, wrapping tightly around him and dragging him down. He struggles wildly. His lungs burn, and his mouth opens automatically, filling him up with soot and salt.

His wings burst into the mortal plane, churning wildly in a final, desperate effort. The beautiful feathers that Aziraphle had been so proud of once quickly become grey and waterlogged, another anchor sinking him faster into the deep.

As darkness tunnels in, Aziraphle’s last thoughts are of Crowley, begging for a rescue that will never come. ‘ _Please, please, I don’t want to die._ ’

*******

He dies. He dies, and wakes up in Heaven, vomiting saltwater all over the pristine tile.

*******

Azreal, angel of death, is waiting there, wings a white so brilliant that it’s like looking into the noonday sun.

Azreal, peaceful and violent in equal turns, pins him down harshly to the floor so he can’t struggle, and gently rubs his back, murmurs calming things in his ear as he coughs up the last of the Irish Sea still caught in his ethereal lungs.

“Please don’t–” Aziraphle coughs again, his wings shuddering from the force. His fingers close weakly around Azreal’s robes. “please don’t tell Gabriel.”

Azreal looks upon him impassively, still as atoms at absolute zero. Gabriel is not to be denied; if he comes with his archangels to shame Aziraphle for his failure, then Azreal will turn away and offer no protection.

“Okay,” Azreal’s voice is older than the stars, soft and steady, and Aziraphle slumps against the cool floor with relief.

*******

They give him a body, just like his old one. It feels too tight, too new, like a noose squeezed all over him.

_(He tries to imagine it as Crowley, squeezing him tightly all over, and it makes the feeling a little more bearable)_

*******

He wakes up in an abandoned village in Belgium, two miles west of the front lines. They have already given him a uniform, and there are papers in his breast pocket saying that he’s a medic.

Aziraphle follows the sounds of gunfire and slips into the first trench he finds without notice.

“Oh thank God,” the commander he finds says when he hands over his papers. “Our last medic died a week ago. We’ve been sending requests to command for a new one, but we haven’t heard anything back.”

Aziraphle isn’t even sure what his papers said, and he’s not quite sure what exactly he’s supposed to do, but he’s here now, just like Heaven’s orders said, and now he can get to work.

*******

The first time Aziraphle goes into no man’s land, he slips a knife into his belt, triangular and covered in teeth. As a medic, he may not theoretically be allowed to carry weapons, but he’s no fool, at least when it comes to humans and their penchant for violence. The stars above are too clear, too bright, almost like they _want_ this raid to fail.

“Hey,” a soldier named William sidles up next to him and begins threading his bayonet on his rifle, “I have something for you.”

He reaches into his pack, and pulls out a long, thick piece of wood. The end is bulbous, as thick as his arm, and studded with nails, looking all sharp and wicked in the starlight. Aziraphle curls his fingers around the handle, and _oh_ , it’s perfectly weighted and fits in his hand like hs sword and is so _beautiful_ -

Something deep and ancient wells up in him, at the feeling of holding a weapon that will soon be drenched in his enemies blood. There was a very good reason that he had been put on apple tree duty, after all. “Thank you,” Aziraphle gives it a practice swing. “It’s a well-made weapon, did you do it yourself?”

William nods, his teeth too-white. “Yep. took a few nails and put it together a few days ago. I’ve been meaning to give it to you, without a weapon, you’re a sitting duck.” Aziraphle flashes his knife, and William grins. “Good boy.” Aziraphle bristles at being called ‘boy’, but William claps his shoulder anyway. Only Crowley would have the right to call him such a thing, and Crowley is far away, unreachable, unfoundable. Aziraphle can’t help but wish that Crowley was here cracking jokes to ease the air of doom that’s settled over him. Maybe if he was crouching in the dirt with the rest of them, his yellow eyes hopeful even behind his glasses, then Aziraphle could feel the same, instead of just sick to his stomach.

They go over the sandbags as one, creeping through the barbed wire, and dropping to crawl on their bellies the rest of the way. Beside him there’s a boy no older than 18 and Aizraphle isn’t sure he hasn’t lied about his age to sign up for the war efforts, to serve his country faithfully. On any normal day, if he weren’t in this blasted war himself, or perhaps if he were any normal angel, he’d approve and be delighted to see the gusto he’d first signed up with. 

But he isn’t and this isn’t, and he can only watch with a grim line drawn across his face as the boy jumps and yelps in surprise as a mouse suddenly moves across his hands from where it had been napping in a long-dead soldier’s helmet. They were already on the knife's edge of nerves, frayed and hypersensitive to any noise or movement that might mean a flare was being sent up to sight them and gun them down while they were helpless beneath the barbed wire

The boy rears back up onto his hands and knees and his scream is barely muffled as the barbed wire rips into his back and neck. Everyone else stops and the air between all the members of the platoon of men Aziraphle is a part of is dead and still in ways only those who have been to war can know. They know what’s going to happen next, but they can’t help but pray desperately they haven’t been seen, haven’t been heard, that they won’t die and this boy won’t have damned them all for the instinctive fear of an unseen mouse in the middle of no-man’s land.

The shot rings out across the field, and Aziraphle hears it go through the boy’s head, feels the bullet’s turbulence and something warm and wet and soft splatter his face.

The boy cries out as he falls, and _keeps_ crying, wailing as he writhes on the ground. The other trench is waking up, people shouting in German and turning on spotlights.

Aziraphle panics, cupping the boy’s head in his hands and trying to pull down a little power.

Nothing. Nothing comes though his fingers—he’s breathing too fast and his power is slipping away like water and the boy keeps crying, and the likelihood of everybody being shot grows faster and faster.

In a panic, Aziraphle grabs his club, bringing it down on the boy’s head as hard as he can, over and over again, until the boy goes still.

Everybody else has frozen, watching and waiting. Waiting for flares or bullets of even mortars to rain down on them.

Aziraphle waits with them, covered in blood and brain matter, shaking. Slowly, the other trench begins to calm, the shouts lessening and the lights going out one by one.

The other soldiers melt back through the barbed wire. There won't be any raids tonight.

Aziraphle makes a circle motion with his hand, casting a ward to keep all attention away from him.

 **“Guardian,”** a voice slinks around his ear, making him shiver. The air around him grows cold, until Aziraphle can see his breath plume in front of him.

He turns, and Death is waiting for him, standing tall in a tattered uniform, with a dented, rusty helmet.

“You changed your clothes,” Aziraphle observes. He kneels and hugs himself tightly.

 **“You have a soul for me,”** Death points at the boy’s corpse. **“I will take it.”**

Aziraphle turns back, putting his hands on the boy's chest to try and find the bright, strange lights that all humans carry. He’s shaking again, so hard that his hands are useless.

“Sorry, so sorry,” he apologizes, pushing his hands into his lap. “This might take a minute.”

Death’s head tilts to the side, but otherwise does nothing. Aziraphle takes a deep breath, willing his shaking to stop. Death has always been patient to Aziraphle, and will stand as long as needed to take a soul.

Aziraphle reaches down to scoop out the young boy’s soul with trembling fingers, cupping it in the palm of his hand. He brings it to his lips and speaks a prayer for a safe journey in the most ancient of languages, before settling it in Death’s bony fingers and closing them.

“Please, keep him safe,” Aziraphle begs. There’s still pink, fleshy bits stuck under his fingernails.

Death leans in, putting teeth on Aziraphle’s forehead in a macabre kiss. “ **I promise, Guardian of the Eastern Gate.** ” Death smells like nothing, no rotting flesh or decaying vegetation; the human poets always got it wrong.

Death tucks away the soul in wings that are black and terribly beautiful, adding it to the bright stars and nebula. Aziraphle tries to focus on the ever-shifting patterns, but a headache begins to build behind his eyes, and he has to glance away.

By the time he looks back, Death has vanished, leaving him alone with the body.

*******

Aziraphle has always looked upon most human inventions with pride. He cried with the first tablets began circulating, and remembers beholding the moons of Jupiter through Galieo’s telescope.

But for every invention that brings happiness and progress, there are three or four that bring misery in their wake.

Aziraphle finds such another invention in Ypres.

He’s with the other British soldiers, stationed in the eastern part of the Ypres salient, when he notices a strange greenish-yellow cloud spilling over the edges of the trenches towards him.

Everyone else is similarly stunned by the strange cloud. It covers them quickly, like it was hunting them.

Aziraphle tries to take a breath through the gas, and it feels like glass is being dragged down his throat. He jerks, his body taking over and trying to cough out the strange, burning substance.

He falls against the trench wall, his chest spasming as the fire crawls deeper, burning down into his lungs. He can faintly hear screaming, can see other soldiers falling and clawing at themselves from the corner of his eyes.They’re stinging horribly, tearing up until he can’t see anything.

 _‘Forgive me,’_ he prays, before reaching to the overcast skies above and _tearing_ out the waiting rain with his power.

It comes down in a deluge that soaks them all in moments, chilling the air and turning everything to mud.

But the gas is gone and Aziraphle can finally start to breathe again. He coughs one final time, bending over double, and there is blood on his uniform, bright and frothy and dizzyingly red.

 _‘Oh, it’ll one one of **those** wars,’ _Aziraphle thinks to himself, before he slides to the ground, completely unconscious.

*******

The gas attacks keep coming, until they’re overwhelming in their intensity.

They use rags soaked in urine at first, before they’re finally issued gas masks. Aziraphle is grateful; after calling down the storm, he found a note from Gabriel in his breast pocket that tore into him for using up his miracle quota.

*******

Sometimes, he sees War galloping through No Man’s Land before they go up over the edge, throwing her head and whining shrilly. Her mane ripples in the air, the color of rotting blood.

Some of the other soldiers say that she’s a ghost of their dead comrades come back to haunt them. Other’s say that she’s a demon,stalking them to rip out their souls while they sleep.

Aziraphle always snorts into his ration coffee while he listens. War is too real to real to be a ghost, and too powerful to be concerned with the souls of humans. She is her namesake and her namesake is her; she has more important things to consider than a few mortals huddled together in a bolthole.

(But angels? That’s an altogether different story)

*******

Aziraphle is in no man’s land when he feels her presence approach.

There had been another sprint for the German trench, two hundred yards away, and another thousand men cut down in moments by machine guns and mortar fire.

Aziraphle went down into the sun-baked, cracked earth, hidden from the raging battle by the other soldiers sprawled around him.

And now the sun is high above them, making the air shimmer at the edge of the horizon.

War comes plodding through it, first a red smudge, then her details becoming clear as she gets closer. Bullets pass through her without a spray of blood; even a mortar cloud is something for her to blithely cross. 

She looks like she’s out for a stroll in the Flemish countryside, not in the middle of a battle.

“You look dreadful,” she says as she stops beside him. Her head blots out the sun, and Aziraphle, tired as he is, is grateful for the shade.

“You’re being awfully rude,” is all he can think to say. His mind has gone a careful sort of blank, too many questions sitting on his tongue.

_Why are you here, how did you find me in this sea of dead, what do you want with me?_

Aziraphle has met War before, but always from a distance, a glimpse in the middle of a charge, or on the other end of a battlefield. Never this close.

She smells. Rot and decay and the sharp tang of gunpowder.

“I found you because I want you to do something for me.” She tosses her forelock out of her eyes, ears swiveling to catch every sound. “I’m hungry. I eat and I eat but it doesn’t fill me. So when I felt you, I figured I’d offer you a deal.”

“What kind of deal?” Part of Aziraphle is yelling at him to stop, shut up, just fade into the background, like he’s done to avoid unwanted attention.

War tilts her head to the side. Her tail flicks over her thighs, brushing away flies. ”Give me a piece of you, and I will let all of you go.”

“You’re not real. You can’t hurt me,” Aziraphle spits out before coughing from thirst. Angels aren’t supposed to lie, not even to themselves. But Aziraphle is the closest to human that he has ever been and it’s easier then trying to face the truth. He licks his lips and tastes dust.

“On the contrary, Principality,” War brings a hoof forward and puts it on his chest, letting him feel the splintery keratin, “I am quite real.” She pulls back her mouth to reveal a set of fangs that would put Crowley to shame. “Real enough to stomp all of you to death. How do you think that would feel, Principality, to have me smash your head in?” The soldier to his right moans softly as something sail overhead with a piercing shriek. Aziraphle grabs his hand, squeezing it tightly before letting go.

"Fine," he says, exhausted, defeated. He offers his left hand, cupping her muzzle. "Whatever you do, please, just make it quick."

She turns her head almost too fast to follow, and his pinkie and ring finger are suddenly gone, blood welling up and spilling over in their place. She placidly chews them, the grinding sounds of bones nearly making Aziraphle vomit.

She swallows, still watching Aziraphle. He gets ready to snap his fingers, but something in her gaze stops him.

“Can I go now?” He’s faced artillery and the brutality of trench fights, he can talk to one extraordinary horse without his voice shaking. “Are we free to leave?”

War’s eyes go wide, enough that Aziraphle can see the whites of them. She raises her rear hoof and scrapes it along the dirt. “It didn’t work.” She approaches him slowly. Like how Crowley used to hunt mice, the same gentle, deceptive sway. “I’m still hungry, Principality. You _lied_ to me.”

“I said no such thing!” Now Aziraphle is frightened, and with good reason. War looms over him, and the human part of Aziraphle shakes at feeling the ancient power of a god completely focused on him.

Before he can move, War’s teeth flash near his thigh. His trueform _writhes_ as she rips out a piece of his ethereal flesh, swallowing it whole. She pauses for moment to swallow, before _screaming_ , rearing up and flashing her hooves in a fury.

"Why won't it work!" She slams them down into the dust just a few centimeters from his temple. One of the other soldiers says a prayer. Someone calls out for their mother. She rears back again, and Aziraphle is filled with the quiet, dreaded certainty of knowing that he will die for a second time.

His fingers snap before his brain can even register the motion, and suddenly everybody is in the relative safety of the trench that they left behind, a hundred yards behind them.

They can still hear War rampaging across the wastes, screaming her fury above the sound of gunfire. Aziraphle squeezes the stumps of his fingers until blood wells into the spaces.

He heals it the human way, wrapping it carefully in gauze and bandages, pretending not to notice the way the other men in the unit glance away from him or make the sign of the cross when they come too close.

Aziraphle suddenly wishes Crowley were here, bandaging him instead. He can see it, Crowley’s hair peeking out from under his helmet as he finishes wrapping the wound, kissing it for the drama and declaring it all better.

But there is no Crowley here, and so he quickly ties it off, and shoves down his ache without a word.

That night, he dreams of Crowley’s ribbon-bright hair with War’s face underneath, and Aziraphle startles awake with the certainty that while he might not have made a deal with the Devil, he’s pretty sure he sold a piece of his soul anyways.

*******

There are some things that lighten the somber mood. If Aziraphle’s in the rear trenches, away from the worst of the fighting, sometimes he catches the supply wagons dropping off food and medicine. 

“She’s lovely,” Aziraphle says, lightly stroking the muzzle of the tall dun mare. She nibbles at his fingertips, making him laugh. He’s always liked horses well enough, as long as he isn’t on their backs. He looks into her eyes, thinking of War, but there's nothing there except curiosity as she mouths his chest for treats. “What’s her name?”

“Whiskey, sir,” her handler says. Aziraphle gives him a critical once-over. He’s tall, but spindly, without even a shadow of a beard like most everyone he’s met is currently sporting. Even Aziraphle now has a face full of scratchy whiskers. The boy can’t be older than thirteen or fourteen, certainly lying about his age to get this close to the front lines.

Even as Aziraphle strokes and coos at the horse, he lays a quiet spell on the boy, half blessing and half curse. Just enough to get him shot, but not anywhere important. Maybe in the arse, perhaps, just enough to get him sent home and away from the slaughter happening a few hundred meters away. Something that he can laugh at his grandchildren about in sixty years. “That’s a good name.” He gives a blessing to Whiskey too, just because the sun is out and there are poppies blooming and it’s enough to pull his brain from the sludge. “You take good care of her.”

As he walks away, he miracles three cans of meat into the bottom of his haversack. It’ll be enough to feed any of the other soldiers he’s sure to run into at some point, and he’d be a fool not to take it.

Things settle into a pattern. Aziraphle wanders the trenches, through soldiers speaking French and English and even German, on occasion. He heals as best he can, miracles away some mold from a crate of biscuits or lays a sigil down to keep a bolthole free of rats.

“ _Hello_ ,” says a French soldier as Aziraphle pushes aside the curtain of a bolthole to spend the night. There’s a small fire smouldering in the center, with a tin pot sitting in the embers. Aziraphle sniffs, and smells burnt ration coffee. The whole thing is smoky and dark.

“ _Hello_ ,” Aziraphle replies. He gestures towards the pot. “ _May I have some?_ ”

The other soldier nods, wrapping his hand with a square of cloth to pick up the pot and pour Aziraphle a cup.

“ _I don’t have sugar_ ,” He laughs when he sees the face Aziraphle pulls at the bitter taste. 

“ _Sorry, could you repeat? My French is-”_ Aziraphle waves his hand side to side, embarrassed.

“I speak English. A little bit. Sorry for not having sugar,” the other soldier reassures him. “My name is Aimé. And you?”

Aziraphle flips through his list of names before settling on one he’s been hoping to use for awhile. “Ezra. And, thank you, for the coffee.”

Aimé waves it away. “It is no trouble. Although, if you have some actual food, I would like to not eat rats tonight.” He chuckles at his own half-joke, until Aziraphle is laughing with him.

He pulls out a can of bully beef and quickly opens it with his knife. “Here,” he offers it to Aimé, pressing it into his hands. “I’m not hungry right now.”

“Are you certain?” Aimé looks like he’s torn between giving it back and scarfing it down right there. He waits until Aziraphle nods before pulling out his own knife and beginning to eat.

As darkness falls Aziraphle begins to feel the rumbling of the German shells. Several get close enough to send clod of dirt falling from the ceiling of the bolthole. Aimé frowns at it, like he wants to scold it for being a bother. It makes him look even older.

“Tell me about you.” Aimé says. “Where did you come from, who is your family? We need a distraction.”

Aziraphle chuckles under his breath. “I assure you, there’s not much to say. I was born and raised in London, but I have no family.”

Aimé seems shocked. “No wife? No children?”

“No, I’m not that kind of man. Always been a confirmed bachelor, myself.”

Aimé’s mouth opens slightly, like a piece he was searching for has fallen into place. He sips his coffee. “Ah, I see.”

Aziraphle relaxes when Aimé makes no move away from him. If anything, he may even scoot closer. “I can leave, if you want.” His tone is light. The rumbling has stopped, and Aziraphle hopes that everyone is done for the night.

“No, stay. If you go now, the snipers will kill you.” He leans in closer, putting a hand on Aziraphle’s knee. “Please, stay."

Aziraphle turns his head just enough to kiss Aimé on the corner of his mouth, a gentle, delicate thing. Like an offering, ‘ _please, let me make you feel better._ ’

Aimé takes it, twisting so he can kiss Aziraphle better. Aziraphle clambers on top of him, kissing down his jaw and neck.

“Please,” Aimé whimpers, and Aziraphle gives it to him.

They fuck each other almost silently, without taking off their uniforms.

Aziraphle grinds down on Aimé's thigh and pretends it's Crowley's, imagines Crowley whimpering beneath him and thrusting his hips up to meet him.

Aimé comes with a grasp, his face pressed into the side of Aziraphle's neck. Aziraphle pushes himself, so he follows only a few seconds later

"Thank you, Ezra." Aimé whispers before stroking his cheek. He pushes Aziraphle away, who goes willingly. This will be enough. They take out their damp blankets, and huddle underneath them. 

Aimé talks about his family in Nice, and Aziraphle hums in all the right places before moving closer. They probably smell awful, Aziraphle realizes. No baths in several weeks. His hair is unkempt and greasy. If Crowley were here, he would have yelled at Aziraphle for letting his hygiene slip so far and immediately drawn him a bath.

But then again, everything smells awful here and Aimé is the warm body Aziraphle needs tonight.

Aimé dies the next morning, going over the trenches, and Aziraphle takes his soul, tucking it under his auxiliary feathers, close to his ribs. There is no time for a prayer. Other soldiers need him.

*******

 _‘Crowley is dead_ ,' he writes in his journal. It is the second night of Chanukah. The trenches are filled with snow and bodies and his mind is dark with thoughts of beautiful demons toppling into baptismal fonts _. 'Crowley is destroyed and now I am alone. I am alone and the thought is terrifying_.'

They lit a menorah together, the first year the bookshop was open, and Aziraphle holds tight in his mouth the memory of warm dough on his tongue, the way Crowley had softened in the candlelight. 

But there is no warmth, no candles to light, no gifts. The snow keeps coming down in oblivious flakes, and Aziraphle wraps his worn blanket tighter around himself. His fingers are blue with cold; they can barely hold the pencil.

 _‘Come back to me, darling,’_ he writes, before scribbling over it and shoving the journal forcefully back in his breast pocket.

He curls in on himself, clasping his hands between his legs for warmth. He doesn’t pray to Her, not anymore. He hasn’t heard Her voice since Eden and knows full well any prayer of his would get lost in the myriad that the humans are already sending up.

“Ezra?” Another soldier comes out of the bolthole where they’ve all been huddling since nightfall to relieve his watch. Aziraphle remembers his name, and that he comes from a family of thirteen siblings all crammed into one cottage in the South Downs. “I’ll take it over from here.”

“Thank you, Sterling.” Aziraphle squeezes his arm.

“Who were you writing to?” Sterling asks. “If you don’t mind me asking. I saw you through the crack in the curtain.”

Aziraphle waves off his question. He smiles, and his lip splits open from the cold. “Just an old friend of mine back home.”

“Okay then,” Sterling claps his shoulder hard enough to make him stagger, “go and try get some sleep. I’ll make sure to wake everyone up if things change.”

Aziraphle nods, before ducking back into the paltry warmth of the bolthole. He tucks himself in as best he can, and dreams of Crowley in No Man’s Land next to him, being cut down by holy water bullets.

When he comes to, it’s with a racing heart and Crowley’s name on his lips, and he feels like he hasn’t rested at all.

*******

Aziraphle is on his fifth bottle of scotch, and the room is spinning.

He’s been granted two weeks leave, but instead of returning to London with it’s empty, lonely bookshops and parks full of bad memories, he’s in Spain, in a town called A Coruña on the northwest coast

He’s at some bar that takes up the first floor of his hotel, in a drinking contest with a woman whose face he won’t be able to recognize tomorrow.

There’s hands on his shoulders and hands bringing him shots and the gas lamps are swirling around him in the best possible way.

He tries to take the second-to-last shot, but his stomach is floating and his arm is floating and he’s floating. Floating too much, too high, never making it back to ground-

He topples out of his chair, cracking his head against the floor. Laughter erupts around him. “Come on, get up.” Somebody says in English, offers him a hand to help him up. He stumbles to his feet, and leans against the same woman who he was drinking against earlier. “Where’s your room?” She asks in accented English, concerned.

“Is-is up-” Aziraphle points at the ceiling, “three! Drei, yes, drei!” His head lolls back, loose and relaxed. “Dreihundertsechsundsibezig.”

Murmurs in Spanish erupt around him. He’s jostled to the front desk, there’s another conversation that he can’t follow, before he’s jostled into the elevator and deposited gently onto his floor.

Someone unlocks his door, and guides him to his bed. The sheets are pulled back, he’s gently laid down and a glass of water is put on his nightstand.

“Thank you, Crowley,” Aziraphle mumbles happily into his pillow, firmly convinced that it’s his best friend who’s taking care of him.

“Not Crowley,” the woman says gently, pulling the sheets up around his chin. “I’m sorry. Go to sleep.” 

*******

The war ends. Aziraphle waits in a trench in Northern France with his trench watch, counting down to the eleventh hour.

Eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, is what the orders had said.

Everybody has gathered around him, watching the hands on his pocket watch tick down. There has been a surprising lack of mortar shells or last-minute trench raids, and Aziraphle is keeping one parcel of attention on the watch, and another on the lip of the trench. The other soldiers are the same, bowed over the watch. Piano wire would be less tense. 

The hands hit eleven, and Aziraphle sighs.

“Well, that’s it then.” He closes the face and buckles it back on. “War’s finished. We can all go home.”

There is no cheering, no exuberance. Everybody is too worn out for such displays. Aziraphle puts his wristlet away and stands up. The other soldiers begin dispersing, waiting for the orders that will allow them to go back home.

Aziraphle gets on a ship and placidly watches the waves from the deck.

He’s discharged with honors. They smile and tell him how _brave_ he was, how _patriotic_. People see the uniform and shake his hand, thank him for his service, give him the best seats on the trains with the other returning soldiers.

Aziraphle thinks of the souls in his wings. It was not bravery, not patriotism. Death just hasn’t had a chance to catch up with all the creative ways humans have invented to kill each other. He was just filling in, executing Heaven’s orders.

Soho is filled with too many people. Women in rich fabrics and men in striking suits. Aziraphle feels like a bug next to them, skittering through in his uniform.

The bookshop’s locks pop open without him needing to reach for any keys.

He’ll need new keys, Aziraphle realizes. He tries to let the realization roll off his shoulders, like water off a newly surfaced duck.

He shuffles it away into the recesses of his mind, along with a million other forgotten near-breakdowns.

The first breath Aziraphle takes smells of mildew and rot. He’s not surprised; it’s been years since he’s been home and the moths have probably managed to figure out a way past his wards.

His first step sends up a cloud of dust from the neglected runner, making him sneeze. There's piles of books and pamphlets in his way; he brushes past, letting them fall with abandon. The bookshelves loom over him. Quiet sentinels guarding his temple.

The inside looks ugly, cluttered. He doesn’t feel safe. Just paranoid that something will pop up from behind the shelves and kill him. Why bother with books and tomes and scrolls when humanity will just go and destroy them all again?

Maybe he should just burn it down. Shred every book, every piece of knowledge, and start over. After all, humanity seemed to have a knack for it, and look where they are now?

He stumbles into the main atrium, and Death is waiting for him.

 **“I have come for what you carry, Guardian of the Eastern Gate,”** Death rattles.

“Suppose it was too much to ask politely,” Aziraphle mutters. Death doesn’t move. “Want some tea?”

Death raises wings, and Aziraphle’s automatically spread in response. “ **Give them to me**.”

Something in Aziraphle snaps, and he sneers. ”Fine, take them!” He shouts. His wings snap back and forth, souls spilling from his feathers in tiny pools of light. “I carried them for you, and now I can’t anymore! Get them out of here.” He picks up three or four in his hand and throws them at Death, kicking several more. He doesn’t even realize he’s crying until the weight he’s been holding in his wings for over three years lifts away. The last of the souls plop down onto the floor.

Death crouches, gently gathering them together, and Aziraphle does the same. “I’m sorry,” he apologizes, “I’m just...tired. I suppose. Very tired.”

Death stares at him with desolate eye sockets, without a word, before reaching to gather the rest of the souls and put them in those strange, nebulous wings.

Death never offers comfort, except for those it has come for.

Aziraphle is still crouched on the floor when he feels Death's robes tickle his shirt and the phantom sensation of skeletal fingers in his hair.

He tucks his wings around himself as tight as he can, shivering wildly.

He wants Crowley, wants to curl himself up and let Crowley hug him with his warm arms.

But Crowley has been gone for over fifty years. Maybe he tried to retrieve his precious Holy Water and it went horribly wrong and now he’s a puddle of goo in some far-off church

Aziraphle hasn't wanted this badly since the Lusitania, with tar coating his lips.

He lets himself sob like a lost child on the floor of his bookshop as the weight of everything he has seen threatens to break him in two.

Night falls before he stops, feeling both stuffy and wrung out at the same time. He puts his wings away, and goes upstairs to his barely used bed. He has slept on occasion, for the fun of it, a handful of times in the past century.

But now he _needs_ it, in a painfully human way. His corporal form feels heavy, and while he could miracle away the exhaustion, something in him wants to shut out the world for awhile.

 _Where are you, Crowley?_ He wants to ask as he falls asleep. _The war is over, you can come home._

Aziraphle sleeps for a week, and when he wakes up, he goes back to giving blessings and miracles, and leaves his shop closed.

*******

The plague comes fast and harsh, sweeping through London quicker than any ethereal or occult agent. The papers are saying that it came out of Spain, that even their king has grown sick with this new flu. Aziraphle doesn’t know any of that. He’s too busy running himself ragged, going between every hospital and sanitorium and clinic in London to try and take care of the sick and dying. He uses up his monthly miracle quota helping the worst of them pass quietly, without pain, or giving the caretakers enough energy to finish their shifts and making sure there are enough washcloths and clean water and antiseptic.

He feels worse than useless. Even though he hasn’t eaten since the war, and his bookshop gathers dust, he can’t stop, not until he can either heal everyone himself or he grows hunched and pale and coughs himself to death.

Sometimes he catches Pestilence scuttling between cots and across the walls of the wards, leaping out the windows to go spread more sickness. Aziraphle watches him go and doesn’t bother trying to stop him. He’s already dealt with War and Death; he doesn’t need to find out what Petilance might do to him. Maybe pluck out his eyes or scar his lungs even more.

 _"You can't kill kids,”_ Crowley’s ghost echoes in his ear as Aziraphle stalks the hospital corridors.

But now it's not just children, it's the adults, the ones just grown and the ones just becoming old. 

Maybe God is angry again. Maybe She finally wants to finish the job She started five thousand years ago.

Maybe this is the End Times, come a hundred years too early. Clear out humanity like so many pests. Give Heaven and Hell their perfect battlefield without any guilt.

For once, he’s glad Crowley isn’t here to force him to defend God.

There is no justifying this.

*******

He goes on a two week bender as soon as the plague is declared over, and gets more drunk then he possibly could have imagined. He’s pretty sure he comes close to dying.

Gabriel comes, once. It is New Years Eve and the streets are filled with dirty slush. His suit is perfectly pressed, slate grey. Aziraphle can’t quite remember if he even put a shirt on today. He looks at Aziraphle with an expression of grave disappointment, before plastering on a smile.

“Good news, Aziraphle. You’re getting a raise! Because of your work in Europe, we decided it’s time to raise your celestial wages.” He claps Aziraphle on the back. “Listen, I know it’s hard, but buck up. They’re just humans, after all.”

 _‘Fuck off,’_ Aziraphle wants to shout. He wants to throw his glass of scotch in Gabriel’s face, drag him into the worst of the trenches and the wards full of dying, shove them in his face so he can’t look away. How dare he look all smug and proper when there are children dying and families starving in the streets. 

_‘Fuck off.’_ He doesn’t look as Gabriel vanishes in a column of light. _‘Go bugger off back to Heaven and let me drink myself to death.’_

New Years 1921 passes Aziraphle by. He doesn’t go out and celebrate, but he does break out some vintage or other Crowley got him in 1845 and makes a toast to his friend.

‘ _Pox riddance,’_ Aziraphle thinks, gesturing his bottle towards the ceiling. _‘Pox riddance to this entire goddamned decade,_ ’ 

*******

He sits on a park bench in the Crystal Palace Park, next to Crowley. Warlock is drawing graffiti in front of the Iguanodon statues. 

Aziraphle watches him. He doesn’t seem like he’s destined to command a hellish army and burn the world to ash. He seems like a child, prone to temper tantrums and curious questions and easily making friends.

Crowley is sprawling next to him, seemingly relaxed. Aziraphle knows him too well though, and there’s tension in every tight muscle of his body.

”I’m saying you could kill him,” Crowley snaps.

Aziraphle crashes, reboots. The idea hadn’t even crossed his mind.

“I can’t kill a child!” Aziraphle's voice pitches up, his chest tightening in the way it does when he’s truly upset. “I’m an agent of the Lord. We don’t _murder_ children.”

That’s a lie. Angels have murdered many children, thousands, wiped out in a single flood, or a divine plague, or because of somebody’s bad mood.

Aziraphle knows he killed them too, cut them down in the barren wastes with a bullet between their eyes and stabbed them with his knife and watched the light fade from their eyes and he can’t do it again. He can’t deal with the blood of another child, even one destined to bring the end times, on his hands.

Crowley gives him a glare that would make lesser angels tremble. Aziraphle knows they’re both thinking of the Flood, and the Ten Plagues, and Sodom and Gomorrah.

“You’re a demon. Why don’t you do it?” Instantly, he knows it’s the wrong thing to say. Crowley’s face goes dark and closed off.

“I _don’t_ touch kids. You’ve known me for 6000 years, Aziraphle, and we both know that’s the _one thing_ I won’t do.” Aziraphle pinches the bridge of his nose. “Well, we need some sort of idea. We can’t just let the Antichrist run around and bring about the End Times. Maybe, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. you could just-”

“Don’t ask me that.” Crowley's lips draw back, revealing teeth that have far more pointed than any teeth have right to be. “Of all the shit you’ve asked of me, this is the one thing I won’t do.”

“Then why would you ask it of me?” He snaps, resolutely ignoring how his lungs feel like they’re threatening to fill with water.

Crowley has the grace to look away for a moment, though he doesn’t apologize even when he looks back. Aziraphle can’t even hold it against him, not when his hands have been stained so deeply thanks to the mandate of Heaven (and occasionally the mandate of Aziraphle) that he wonders if he’ll ever be clean again. 

“Okay, okay,” Aziraphle puts his hands up in a placating gesture. “I apologize for offering such a suggestion. But we _need_ to figure something out. We don’t have much time left.”

“Fine,” Crowley sighs in that long-suffering way of his. Rubs his face with his hands like he’s become infinitely old in half a second. “I have some ideas. Maybe we’ll be able to figure something else out.”

*******

Aziraphle doesn’t realize he’s in the circle until the beams blind him from above.

He glances up, into the Heavenly light, and then back at Shadwell. Already, he can feel the painful tugging.

“Fuck!” He shouts, trying to put all his sorrow, and rage, and guilt into a single word.

 _“You stupid old man!”_ Aziraphle wants to strangle him, watch him turn blue as a punishment for ruining this. _“You’ve doomed the world, and you don’t even know it.”_

The last thing he feels is his feet leaving the floor, before a great, roaring pain as his body is torn into a million points of light.

*******

Adam rips Aziraphle away from Tracey’s body and Aziraphle suddenly feels hollow. He stumbles, unused to muscle and blood and bone.

He takes a breath, and it slides in and out without hitching. There’s no scarring, no tightness. It’s the first time in over a hundred years he can take a full breath. He flexes his left hand and feels his pinkie and ring finger bite into his palm. His hand is whole again, without even a single scar to show where War's teeth had marred him, and he’s suddenly heady with the loss. 

He barely notices War go up in a pillar of fire, but he does notice his sword fall to the ground, still wreathed in flames. He’d have to be worse than a fool to not notice the way his trueform is singing at seeing the only weapon that was ever made for him returned.

He wants to claim it, and reaches out to it. But his feet are still solid against the tarmac, frozen, as a thousand images come crashing down upon him.

He remembers a boy. He remembers a boy, and his blood in Aziraphle's mouth as he clubbed him to death for the simple Crime of crying in pain. He remembers the boy's soul, light in his trembling, dirty hands, passing it off to Death.

He remembers killing children, and suddenly he's so terrified of his sword that he forgets to breathe.

One of Adam’s friends picks it up in his place, and they dispatch Pollution and Famine together.

Guilt and shame nearly threaten to choke Aziraphle. He’s an agent of the Lord, who fought in the very first war without issue, and yet here he is, feeling small and scared and letting child soldiers do what he was created for.

He watches Adam pick up the sword and walk forward, head held high to meet Death’s gaze.

_Please be careful, you’re only human. I’m an angel and Death was kind to me, but there’s no telling how you’ll fare._

They discuss in voices too quiet for Aziraphle to hear what’s being said, before Death raises those great, dark wings filled with the entire universe, only to vanish in a black starburst. The bottom of Aziraphle's chest collapses, like a vacuum pump just ripped out his diaphragm.

 _"Please don't go,"_ he wants to shout. _"Please, you were kind to me once, please, protect us from Their wrath."_

*******

They swap bodies. 

They go to the park, and Heaven takes Crowley away. Aziraphle feels the tire iron smack him in the back of the head, before he crumbles into a pile of gangly limbs.

“ _Please_ ,” he prays. Barely a whisper to disturb the fabric of the Universe. “ _Please let me see him again_.”

*******

There is an empty bathtub, sitting in the middle of the room. It’s old, the procelion all cracked, and the claw-feet at each corner have tarnished to dull brown. It’s almost looks like something Aziraphle would have in his washroom.

It almost looks normal, except for the fact that Aziraphle’s chest is tight like it will snap in half. He swallows and reminds himself that Crowley would be cool. Crowley wouldn't even blink.

Crowley would be brave.

Beezelbub sentences him to extinction, and Micheal comes with a pitcher of holy water, perfect and clean to pour into it.

“Can I take off my jacket?” Aziraphle is suddenly glad for Crowley’s glasses. “It’s new; dont wanna ruin it.”

He drops the jacket onto the floor. Cool, need to be cool. He miracles away his clothes to reveal a bathing suit. Hell doesn’t deserve Crowley, doesn’t deserve to see his beautiful skin. He takes off his glasses and sets them aside, hoping Crowley will forgive him for making him so vulnerable. Aziraphle takes a breath, tells himself it’s just a bathtub, too shallow to drown in. Think of Crowley, (he reminds himself), think of him stepping into hellfire, and that’s enough to get him to tip back into the water.

It’s cold. It’s cold it’s cold it’s cold–

The porcelain cracks under his fingers, and that’s enough to bring him back. The demons on the other side of the viewing glass are beginning to panic.

Aziraphle sneers. He splashes some water towards the glass, watching them shrink back. Anger is easy. Anger is the easiest thing he’s done in 6000 years.

“Now, I know what you’re thinking,” He grins at the glass, all sharp, predatory fangs, “if he could do this, what else could he do?” He turns to Beezelbub. “So, I think in the future, it’d be in your best interests to leave me alone, don’t you think?” His smile grows wider as he watches Beezulbub nod.

Before he can say anything else, he hears the click of Micheal’s perfect heels against the concrete.

“Micheal, dude!” Aziraphle looks over his shoulder. His fangs grow just a little bit sharper, his nails drawing out into claws. _‘Touch me,’_ he almost wants to goad her. _‘Touch me so I can grind your bones to stardust between my teeth.’_ “Would you mind getting me a towel? I think I’m done here.”

Micheal is gobsmacked enough to miracle a waiting towel into her hands, white and pristine as the rest of her. 

He snatches the towel out of Micheal’s hand, just hard enough to sting. He even scrunches his nose at the Prince of Hell. Crowley would be proud.

“Well, if you’re not going to destroy me, I’ll be off.” Aziraphle hoists himself out of the water. miracles himself dry and his clothes back on in one go. Puts Crowley’s glasses on with a final flourish. “Sins to accomplish, mischief to make.”

In a sudden burst, he tips over the bathtub. Something sick and decidedly _non-angelic_ gathers in his chest as hewatches Bezulbub, Dagon and Hastur scramble over themselves to flee. Crowley likes theatrics, drama; no one should suspect. 

He slings his towel around his neck and makes sure to shoulder-check Micheal on his way out.

*******

He comes out the other side exhausted, crumbling.

He sits on the bench, waiting for Crowley. Without even realizing it, he slips into that place he goes sometimes when his mind spins out, the one that muffles the sounds of people and make him slow to react.

Crowley’s hand in his is the one thing he surfaces for, feeling it’s warmth, the calluses along his palm and (Something here)

 _‘I could have lost this,’_ Is his only thought. _‘I nearly lost you, nearly everything. Six thousand years, gone up in an instant.’_

He can't even remember what he orders at the Ritz. Maybe cake, maybe a steak. He’s pretty sure Crowley has to order for him and it all tastes like sawdust in his mouth.

Crowley doesn’t seem to notice. There’s a spring in his step, less of the animal prowl of centuries past. He holds Aziraphle’s hand all the way back to the bookshop and the way the light hits his glasses shows that his pupils are soft and round with joy.

“I’ll see you tonight, Ezra.” Crowley calls him by his human name, and it _hurts_ , in a way that Aziraphle doesn’t even want to try and articulate yet.

Then Crowley kisses his forehead, and vanishes back into the crowd.

Aziraphle goes inside, carefully shutting the door behind him. At least from where he’s standing, everything has been returned, everything in its place. There’s no trace of the fire, except an echo of someone’s enraged grief that’s soaked into the building itself.

He slides to the floor, bringing out his wings to hide in. He feels like he’s been scooped out, gutted and thrown into the wind. There’s no ground left for him to stand on, and the part of him that finds the idea exhilarating is quickly being drowned out by terror.

 _“We’re on **our** side now,” _Crowley had told him, and now Aziraphle hangs onto the memory so tightly it would dig into his palms, if it were a physical thing.

*******

Slowly, Aziraphle begins to put himself back together. He takes inventory of his books, and takes Crowley to new restaurants, and even gets to kiss him once or twice on the backroom couch.

He can finally begin making his own life, without Heaven’s eyes carefully watching his every move. He can go to the theater whenever he wants and hold Crowley’s hand and get him pastries every morning from the bakery on the corner.

It’s on one such morning when Aziraphle is waiting for his order of cranberry scones that he flips through the paper and sees the ad.

It’s an exhibit about the _Lusitania_ , with artifacts and recreations of the ship, running at the (British museum) from this coming Saturday until the end of January.

Aziraphle tucks the newspaper in his coat pocket and turns the thought of going over in his head all the way home.

“Angel,” Crowley snaps at him, waving a half-eaten scone under his nose, “did you even hear anything I said?” “What do you think," he pulls out the paper and points to the exhibit ad, circled in red pencil, "about going to this? It's been a while since we've gone."

Aziraphle can see Crowley's eyes narrow behind his glasses. He has that calculating look, the one that says he knows something’s off.

Aziraphle prays that Crowley won’t press the issue. Won’t try to peel back the armor that Aziraphle has made to protect his tenderest vulnerabilities. 

“Okay, angel.” Crowley leans back in his chair, and Aziraphle tries not sigh with relief. “Sounds like it’d be fun. Maybe set off the fire alarms or infest the vents with cockroaches.”

Aziraplhe doesn’t admonish Crowley like he normally would; he’s too shaken by the idea of finally confronting his emotional mess to speak.

When Crowley offers him his scone, he eats the rest of it in two bites, and tries to shove the exhibit out of his mind.

*******

He meets Crowley on the front steps of the museum, several weeks later. He’s ditched his creamy waistcoat in favor of a cable-knit sweater, with a black trench coat over it.

“You look...different,” Crowley remarks. Aziraphle shrugs with a small smile.

“Felt like a change.” He gestures towards the door. “After you?”

Crowley gives him another glance, before heading inside.

It’s almost too warm. Aziraphle passes his jacket to Crowley, who immediately heads over to the coat check and begins shedding his scarves and jackets. Aziraphle pays for their tickets.

“I never would have taken you to be interested in shipwrecks,” Crowley says as they go through the first room. 

Aziraphle makes a quiet noise, more of a hum, really. He glances over at the paragraphs explaining things about the Lusitania that Aziraphle already knows, like her weight and length and top speed.

( _‘She can go at 25 knots’, the kind clerk had said. ‘Outrun any U-boat.’_

_He wants to tell her that it made no difference.)_

The second room is filled with salvaged artifacts, the iron frames of deck chairs and bright china, still pristine, from the first class lounge. Aziraphle had drunk out of those teacups, listening to the concert they had put on that last night.

In the corner, protected behind a case of glass, sits a small, silver pocket watch. The glass is cracked, with a line of barnacles along the bottom edge, and the watch face has distorted and gone green. The hands stopped at 2:27. Aziraphle knows if he glanced at the back, he would find the name ‘Arthur Forge’ engraved in a delicate script.

“Who’s this guy?” Crowley bends over the plaque, bobbing his head and squinting to read the small print. “Whoever he was, he had good tastes.”

Aziraphle grabs Crowley’s hand and squeezes tightly. Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe he should have never come.

“Angel, you doing okay?” Crowley prods him gently. Aziraphle doesn’t answer. He keeps staring at the frozen watch hands. Was that the time he first hit the water? Or was it when he died, clawing desperately for air?

“Arthur Forge was one of the aliases that I used when I traveled to the United States.” He lets out a nervous laugh. “It was hard having to let go of it, I suppose. Had a nice ring to it.”

Crowley’s full attention is on him now. “Aziraphle, is there something you want to tell me?”

Aziraphle glances away. “After the exhibit, darling.”

Crowley frowns, but does not press the issue. He tugs Aziraphle into the next room, which has recreations of the first, second, and third-class cabins.

“They got the wallpaper wrong,” Aziraphle mutters to himself, trying to lighten the mood that’s dug its claws into him. The irritation comes as a welcome respite.

“Hmm?” Crowley turns to him.

“I said, they got the wallpaper wrong. At least in my room, it was green, not blue, and had lilies.” That makes Crowley chuckle. Maybe coming here wasn't as much of a mistake as he made it out to be.

He thinks that all the way up until they step into the next room.

It’s shadowy, with lights recessed far into the ceiling. The walls are painted dark blue, and covered with tiny, white words. A droning voice is being piped into the room, talking about donation boxes, and Aziraphle automatically tunes it out. Crowley lets go of his hand to go read the writing on the far wall, while Aziraphle does the same.

The first words he reads are a telegram, sent from Valentia Station to Queenstown. 2:15, and the Lusitania has been hit off Old Kinsale Head. 2:20, a message to the Admiralty, saying that a submarine was to blame. 2:25, from Queenstown to the Admiralty, listing off which cities were sending rescue ships. Aziraphle feels something sick gathering in his stomach, like he’s going to throw up all over the nice tile, for the first time in over a century. 

The last message at the bottom is from the Lusitania herself, sent at 2:26 begging for somebody to help her. The sick feeling is growing worse, like his entire abdomen is crushing itself.

Suddenly, the room fills with the sounds of screaming and crying. Aziraphle doesn't think before he’s rushing to the exit, almost running but not quite because that _would make everyone else panic but he has to find a lifeboat he has to get off he can’t drown again please God above don’t let him drown-_

He’s outside before he even realizes where he’s going, down the steps and onto the sidewalk. The cold air cuts through his sweater as he muscles his way through the crowd.

Somebody grabs him by the shoulder, and he spins around, flailing his arms in a panic.

"Don't touch me!" He shouts, before Crowley's stricken face resolves in front of him. His breath is coming too fast, and his heart feels like its thumping so hard it might explode. He's pretty sure he's sweating for the first time in millennia. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry–'' he feels lightheaded. Perhaps he'll even faint.

“Aziraphle, it's okay. Was it the shouting? Because it was just a speaker. It's not going to hurt you." He holds out his hand, and Aziraphle takes it, letting Crowley tow him into an alley to hide behind a dumpster.

Crowley draws him into a hug, and let's Aziraphle fall apart without a word.

Aziraphle is shaking, almost like he’s cold, which is odd because he’s never been cold, and his hands have gone all prickly and static-y, making him panic more. He gulps down air until he feels sick again. From far away, he can hear Crowley trying to soothe him, scratching his nails along the back of Aziraphle’s neck.

Finally, a few centuries have passed, and Aziraphle’s breathing has gone from desperate to shaky. 

“That’s it, angel,” Crowley croons softly in his ear, scratching his hair. “Come back to me,” He says before taking a deep breath. Something in the sensation is comforting for Aziraphle. Even if he’s dying, at least Crowley is here. “Breathe with with me.”

Crowley guides Aziraphle through several deep breaths, until Aziraphle has calmed down enough that he can stand without his legs folding.

"I'm sorry about my...loss of control," he reaches into his pocket for a handkerchief. If She could open up a hole just big enough to swallow him right now, he would really appreciate it. 

“Aziraphle, you don’t have to apologize.” Crowley crosses his arms over his chest, and Aziraphle realizes he’s shivering. “Will you be okay here for a few minutes? I need to go back and get our jackets.”

“Oh, Crowley, I’m so sorry, I completely forgot-”

“Angel, it’s fine,” Crowley’s voice is gentle, but firm. “But I need to know if you want to come with me, or stay here.”

Aziraphle chews at his lip, thinking for a second. “May I come with you?”

Crowley nods, sliding his arm protectively around Aziraphle’s waist as they navigate their way back to the museum.

“Stay here,” Crowley orders, before he runs inside. Aziraphle runs his fingers along the stone of one the pillars to ground himself.

He’s chipped away a small piece by the time Crowley returns and puts his trenchcoat around his shoulders.

"Can we...can we go home?" Aziraphle hates the way his voice shakes. Crowley nods, taking his arm without a word and walking them back to the bookshop.

Inside, Aziraphle goes to the back room and begins going through the motions of making tea. 

As the kettle warms on the burner, he feels Crowley come up behind him.

"Is it alright if I hug you?" His voice is soft, much softer than normal. Aziraphle nods. Words are too hard right now. He feels Crowley encircle his waist and set his head on top of Aziraphle's own. "You don't have to tell me what happened, but if you ever do…" he trails off, leaving them in silence.

Aziraphle turns the burner off, and drags them over to the couch. Crowley sits while Aziraphle goes to the front of the store and lets down the blinds, flipping the sign to CLOSED. He does it the human way, with no miracles.

Crowley is waiting for him when he returns, eyebrows furrowed with worry. 

Azirapgle wants to get drunk. Wants to get obliterated on wine and whiskey and whatever other hard spirits humans have been so clever as to invent. He feels raw, like all his skin has been flayed open and touching a single nerve will make him fall to pieces.

He doesn't do any of those things. Instead he goes over to Crowley and sits on his lap, straddling his thighs and putting his head under Crowley's chin.

"I died. On that ship." He notices he says die and not disincorporate. Maybe because this death feels so much more personal.

(He doesn't say anything about how his last thoughts were an anguished wail for Crowley to rescue him. He doesn't say how he begged Crowley to come save him, and yet Crowley didn't hear him.

 _Didn't_ _do anything_ , a deep bitter part of him hisses.)

“I ended up in the ocean, and drowned there. I think,” he casts back his thoughts, recoiling from the memory, “it was some sort of wire or chain that I had gotten tangled up in, and it dragged me down." He should stop, but something has come unglued. "The last thing I remember was tasting soot, and desperately hoping you would save me."

Crowley tightens his hug, burying his nose in Aziraphle’s hair. “I’m so _sorry_ , angel.”

“There’s nothing you could have done. You were asleep, remember?” Aziraphle kisses the corner of his mouth. Something wretched and old and angry boils up, like ripping off a scar. How _dare_ Crowley not have the same weight on his shoulders, the same circles under his eyes and the same hunched shoulders.

He suddenly yanks Crowly’s scarf and kisses him so hard it _hurts,_ a clack of teeth and lips smashing together. Crowley breaks the kiss, pushing Aziraphle away. 

"Darling, I want you to fuck me so hard I cant remember my own name." _Help me forget all this_ , he wants to beg. _Help me forget water in my lungs and drowning children and screaming boys holding their own brains in their hands._

Crowley's eyes go dark, and he leans back.

"No,"he says, casting final judgement for all the way it hits Aziaphle. "Not right now. Not when you're like this." 

Aziraphle begins trying to unbutton Crowley’s shirt, before Crowley’s claws whip out and _dig_ into his wrist.

"Aziraphle, stop. _Now_."

Aziraphle goes still. Crowley relaxes before running his fingers through Aziraphle’s hair. "You'll work yourself onto another panic attack if you keep this up. Maybe you should sleep. A nap would be good for you.

"I can't," Aziraphle explains. "The nightmares will-"

“I can take them away." His claws trace a circle around Aziraphle’s temple. "Make you have a completely dreamless sleep. Do you trust me?"

Aziraphle wants to forget. Desperately so, even if it's only temporary. "Please," he begs Crowley, like a worshiper begging a god.

Crowley smiles a snake-fang smile, full of promises. "Go to sleep," he says, "and you will dream of whatever you love the most.”

Aziraphle sleeps quietly for the first time in a hundred years. He has no nightmares, and when he wakes up, he finally feels rested.

*******

“I’m going to Ireland,"Aziraphle tells Crowley. “It’s personal business. Have to go see an old friend. I should be back in a week.” 

Crowley is on the couch, sprawled out in the way only a snake-turned-man-shaped-being can. He frowns. "You _will_ call, won't you? I gave you that mobile, so you don't have an excuse."

"Every day," Aziraphle smiles fondly. "Promise."

He books himself tickets and bus passes and a week later is on the train for Gatwick Airport. 

He takes the human way to Ireland, on a crowded plane with crying babies and harried buissness people.

The sky is clouded in Dublin, slate grey and cold as Aziraphle boards on bus for Kinsale. The clouds open up, drenching the windows with silver ribbons. 

He watches the rain all the way to Kinsale, and hurries to the first hotel he can find.

“Here on vacation?” The clerk asks as he codes Aziraphle’s key card. Aziraphle smiles genuinely and nods.

“I’m here to see a friend of mine. And Kinsale is so nice this time of year.”

The clerk hands him the key. “Well, this Sunday we have our ‘End of Summer’ festival, so maybe your friend would like to come! Hope you enjoy your stay, and if you need anything, please don’t hesitate to call the front desk!”

Aziraphle goes up to his room, sets his bag next to him on the bed, before the weight of what’s he’s about to do slams into his shoulders.

He puts his head in his hands, and just for a moment, wishes Crowley were here to take him back to London and pretend that the _Lusitania_ never never had taken to the waves.

*******

Once night falls, he sends a small message to Crowley. _‘Safe in Kinsale.’_

His screen lights up a moment. ‘ _Glad to hear. Have fun!_ ’

Aziraphle smiles before he puts the phone away and leaves the hotel.

The air is heavy with the smell of autumn. Aziraphle draws his jacket around him and hurries through town, out towards Old Kinsale Head.

There’s a golf course out there now, with a big iron gate blocking the way. Aziraphle shakes his head, frowning, and pops the lock open, letting the gates swing open without a sound. He strolls across the green, with nothing but the sound of the ocean and the last few birds settling down for the night to accompany him.

At the cliffs edge, he spreads his wings as a reminder of his divinity. He doesn't need to breathe. The water won't hurt him now. 

Aziraphle takes off his shoes and socks (after all, there’s no reason to get them waterlogged), setting them to the side.

He flings himself off the edge, into the hungry, dark water below.

Aziraphle lets himself drift down until he settles on the seafloor, letting water fill his lungs. He takes a few moments to feel the currents through his feathers, to help remind himself that the water won't hurt him unless he let's it. After pushing water through his lungs for a few minutes, he’s calm enough to begin walking away from Old Kinsale Head, out into open water.

All too quickly, whatever light there was fades away. Aziraphle brightens his halo, lighting the water just enough that he can see in front of him. Fish occasionally dart forward, investigating the glow curiously before swimming away.

After several hours, Aziraphle feels something under his feet. He lifts it up, to find himself standing on top of a large pane of glass, with a brass handle that’s long since gone green. 

His halo brightens in distress. He clenches his hands hard enough to dimple his palms, forcing himself to stay grounded. He has a mission, and he can't fail now.

Going forward through the debris field, he begins finding more artifacts, porcelain wash basins and stained glass and iron balusters. Anything organic has long since gotten eaten away by the chilly water. 

Slowly, the _Lusitania_ begins to outline itself in the water. By the time Aziraphle has reached her, she looms above him, just like she had a century ago. She’s tipped dangerously far to the right, and is covered in nets, like a funeral shroud.

He runs a hand along her metal, and feels something old, something dying. The soul of the ship, slowly falling to pieces.

It sluggishly rises to meet him, wondering. Aziraphle sends back a signal, a gentle hello, something to let her know that she’s no longer alone.

“You poor thing,” he whispers. He miracles himself onto the top of the bow, still intact, dangerously angled. He touches a handrail, covered in rust, and his hands come away red.

The ship has come more awake now, interested in his presence. She follows him as he makes his way along the sloping deck, towards the bridge. 

Aziraphle brushes the nets aside and ducks through a narrow space to get inside. 

It’s completely black beyond the light of his halo. The carpet and wallpaper have been replaced by bare metal and fish and crab nests.

Slowly, Aziraphle makes his way down the corridor. He knows exactly where he’s going, could walk it blindfolded, if he so wished.

Finally, he reaches the first class saloon.

The piano is gone, and so is the beautiful wallpaper. The chairs have been eaten away, leaving only the bolt that held them to the floor. Everything has been laid bare, reduced to rusted and crumpled metal.

He tries to remember the concert that was played here the last night of the voyage, but it’s all fuzzy in his memory. He dimly remembers a ukulele in his hand, and his fingers pluck at imaginary strings.

This was pointless. He turns back and returns to the deck, to the shroud of fishing nets.

He leans against the railing, and just in that second, he is so painfully _human_ that it feels like he’ll disincorporate all over again. A deep, dark part of him wants to, just so he can go and make a new body without all these pesky _emotions_ and _trauma._

Blood and mud and water in his lungs remind him that it worked _so well_ the first time.

He puts his head in his hands and lets the cold seep down into him. It’s dark and lonely down here, and suddenly Aziraphle wants to go back to the surface, wants to see the moon and stars and remind himself of just how alive he is. He flips over the railing, floating gently down to the seabed, his wings wide. As soon as his feet touch the sand, he puts a hand to the pockmarked metal, and opens up his mind. The soul of the ship reaches for him, almost desperately. She’s cold and hurting. She tries to tell him how she had tried to run away from the torpedo, the pain of the two explosions, how she could feel her passengers screaming and struggling in the water.

Aziraphle sends back love, so much his chest aches with it. "You did the best you could,” he says, sending out a small sliver of warmth and gratitude. It hurts, like sticking a hand into hot water, but it’s the least he can do. 

He gives her a small blessing; die a painless death, go back to the earth, to the sea, to the stars that made your steel.

He feels something like sigh travel through her hull, before she shudders and buckles.

She falls to the ocean floor without a sound, kicking up a cloud of sand. Aziraphle doesn't blink; he can't bear to look away.

He waits until the cloud dissipates and settles, before going forward. The hull lies in a twisted heap, unrecognizable. Aziraphle reaches out, wrapping his hand around a plate.

Nothing.

Aziraphle resists the urge to take a breath. He turns back, away from the wreck, and begins the long journey back to shore.

The next thing he remembers is breaking the surface at the base of the cliffs. He barely feels the rocks under his hands, or the grass at the top.

His shoes are still there, waiting patiently. Aziraphle blinks owlishly at them before remembering that humans need shoes, that they may ask questions if they see him without them.

He grabs them, hurrying across the golf course. It’s still dark, but that means nothing when you’re three hundred feet under the surface. It might have only been a few hours, or perhaps it’s been days and days without end.

At some point, he must have stopped to put on his shoes, because now he realizes he’s in the lobby of the hotel and he doesn’t remember how he got there. His clothes are still soaking wet, but Aziraphle is so far away he might as well be in the clouds for all he cares.

He doesn’t even bother with his room key, just vacantly stares at the door until it swings open in concern for him.

He falls onto the mattress, and barely has time to slip off his shoes before sleep takes him.

When Aziraphle wakes up again, sunlight is streaming on his face. He smacks his lips and grimaces at the taste of his mouth. He struggles to sit up. His clothes are still a little bit damp, and there’s a wet spot on the mattress where Aziraphle slept. He miracles it away. His mobile is still on the bedside table, untouched.

It rings once before Crowley picks up. He must have been waiting.

"What the fuck Aziraphle," Crowley barks. "I've been calling you and calling you for three days, but you-”

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphle chokes out. His voice sounds like it got run over in the middle of the road, and it’s enough to draw Crowley up short. “I...I had...I’m sorry, Crowley. I’ve just had a rough go of things the past couple days.”

Silence on the other end. “Are you feeling better?”

The question makes a hysterical laugh bubble up in Aziraphle’s chest. He manages to tramp it down.

“Maybe. I’m not quite sure.” He knows he feels empty, emptier than he felt during the Spanish Flu. Like somebody had battered him into every available surface, then wrung him out and flung him onto the floor. “I’ll be home in a few days.”

“Do you need me to come get you?” Crwoley sounds worried.

The thought of Crowley transporting himself to Ireland, seeing Aziraphle like this is too much to think about. ,“No, just meet me at the airport, if you could.” Aziraphle rubs his face with his other hand. “I should go. Eat something, maybe.”

“Please be careful.”

“I will. Goodnight, Crowley.” He hangs up without saying ‘I love you’ like he normally does.

Aziraphle goes back into town. He eats, even though he isn’t hungry, and goes into shops and pretends like he's interested in buying, slowly feeling himself come back together. People brush his shoulders. He begins to feel more human, until breathing doesn’t feel like a chore.

On the plane back from Dublin, Aziraphle naps. He hasn’t napped in decades, but when he wakes up during the landing, he feels better, lighter. Maybe not refreshed, but rested.

Crowley meets him at the gate, hugging him tightly. “Thank fuck you’re okay,” he whispers.

“ _Language_ , darling,” Aziraphle gently admonishes him. 

It feels nice. Normal. Like things are finally starting to fall back into place.

“How was your...friend?” Crowley asks on the train back to London. “Did it go okay?”

Aziraphle feels a lump gather in his throat, and he turns away. “It went as well as can be expected. I’ll tell you when we get back home.”

Crowley says nothing else, and takes Aziraphle’s hand, squeezing it tightly.

*******

Sometimes Aziraphle is startled when he’s stocking new books and sees his left hand whole. He still forgets, when he’s drinking tea or restoring a classical text. It feels wrong, to see unbroken, unscarred skin there.

While he does appreciate the fact that Adam restored his body, a part of him _wants_ his fingers gone, wants his lungs to be scarred again, if only to be able to say ‘ _I was there; my body tells my story.’_

But now it’s been erased without any thought, his story gone, like he was never there.

Finally, one night when Crowley is asleep in his flat, Aziraphle curls his right hand around his left and gently cuts into the skin with his power, healing it just as quickly. 

When he’s done, there’s a series of thin, cross-hatched lines at the base of his pinkie and ring fingers. It may not be exactly what he wants, but it’s enough to make the tight, sick feeling in his chest unravel.

*******

“I have something for you,” Crowley confesses. They’re at the park, and Aziraphle has contented himself with throwing seed to the ducks. He turns to Crowley, his smile easy and light.

“Is it a croissant? I’ve had a craving for some, lately.”

“No, it’s-” Crowley looks away, chewing his lip, and Aziraphle suddenly feels nervous, “a little bit different.”

He draws a silver chain out of his pocket, and at the first peek of the back, Aziraphle has already leapt to his feet.

“Absolutely not!” He glances around like he’s expecting a museum employee to leap out of the bushes and snatch the watch away. “Where did you even get that?”

“I took it, from the museum.” Crowley swings the watch like a pendulum, entirely too nonchalant for the situation. Aziraphle is frozen as it swings back and forth. “Figured since it was yours, you’d want it back.” "And what if I don't want it?” Aziraphle’s voice wobbles dangerously, and he hates himself just a little bit for showing such weakness. “Did you ever think of that?" 

Crowley's face goes a gentle kind of still, before he curls his fingers over the green face. "Then I'll go put it back in the museum, and we'll never speak of this again. But-" He reaches out, grabbing Aziraphle's hand to plonk the watch down in it. It feels like a curse. It feels like something Aziraphle won't be able to turn his back on, no matter how much he wishes. It feels like the last second of free fall before flight, "I don't think you want to."

*******

“I need help,” Aziraphle mutters one night into his champagne. He’s drinking with Crowley in front of the fire in his flat, and while Crowley has only downed two glasses of cognac, Aziraphle is on his third bottle of wine or champagne or whatever will get him the most drunk in the least amount of time.

“What’d you say, angel?” Crowley has been staring at flames, and even in his drunk state, Aziraphle can feel the small amount of power he’s using to make sure no embers escape.

“I said, I need help, you daft idiot!” He sways, trying to not spill his glass. Crowley stares at him, confused.

"You need help getting off the floor?" He puts his hand forward, as if to pull Aziraphle to his feet.

“No, not the floor,” he snaps, but there’s no heat left to his anger. He drains his glass and picks up the bottle next, draining that too. “Up here.” He waves one of his hands around his temple, feeling even more morose than before. “Everything’s that’s all gone to shit.” He finishes the bottle, hanging his head between his legs. “Can’t even get my emotions un-pear-shaped. Not like the others.” He points at the ceiling, his meaning clear.

Crowley slides to the floor, taking the empty bottle. “Angel, I think you need to sober up.”

Aziraphle squints at Crowley, pouting. “Fuck sobriety.” This is what he was hoping for, the reason he got drunk for the first time since the Antichrist’s delivery. “I need help, Crowley. With the nightmares, the-” he shakes his head slowly. It feels like it’s going to roll right off his shoulders if he keeps this up, “the shell shock, yes, that’s what it’s called. I can’t do it anymore.” There’s big fat tears building in his eyes, and isn’t that just grand?

Crowley scoots forward, carefully wrapping Aziraphle in a gangle of limbs. “It’s okay, Aziraphle, we’ll find someone. Those therapists people, I’ve heard they’re pretty good. And you’ll have me too. You don’t have to be alone, not again.”

Aziraphle buries his face in Crowley’s neck, and for the first time in a century, feels something like hope sprouting in his chest.

*******

Aziraphle sits in a small, white-washed waiting room, trying to make himself comfortable in the vinyl seat. He takes out his watch and rubs the face, his thumb catching on the crack going across the face.

He researched doctors with Crowley for weeks, and looked at offices online (well, Crowley did, anyway), and did the phone interviews until he found a therapist that specialized in combat trauma that had an open spot.

( _“I did nothing,” Crowley had told him, his posture too relaxed to be anything but lying. “One of their patients must have gotten a nice job offer in Finland or something.”)_

“Mr. Fell?” A lady with grey hair and laugh lines around her eyes comes through the door. Aziraphle stands up, back straight. He will have to carry the memory of the Irish Sea, the taste of mustard gas and mud under his fingernails all the way to the heat death of the universe; what can one human do against that?

”My name’s Dr. Uto.” She offers her hand, and Aziraphle takes it gently. “We talked on the phone. How have you been lately?”

As she leads him back to her office, Aziraphle shoves the hopeless voice away.

The war is over. He can finally come home.


End file.
